Phoenix, AZ (April 4, 2012) – Phoenix School of Law (PSL) invites law students, lawyers, judges, mediators and other legal professionals to an exciting conference taking place on April 13-15th centered around an international law movement gaining more notoriety around the world known as Comprehensive/Integrative Law. The comprehensive law movement contains many models and practices. Some practices, such as peacemaking circles, originated among tribal societies. Others are more recent developments. At times, seemingly identical new models have arisen in different geographic areas. Different names developed, some of which are still used in making reference to the movement. Comprehensive law has been or is sometimes called integrative law, renaissance law, transformational law, visionary law, conscious lawyering, holistic law or holistic justice, creative lawyering, and relationship-based lawyering.

The conference begins on Friday evening which is open to the public and continues on Saturday and Sunday with various panels for interested legal professionals. “Phoenix School of Law is very

I received this announcement about "Lawyers as Agents of Evolutionary Change" from friend Kim who is one of the co-facilitators. (The early bird deadline has passed but I am told there may have been an extension. Check with Kim.)

J. Kim Wright is partnering with James O'Dea, former Executive Director of Amnesty International, Washington, DC; former Executive Director of Institute of Noetic Sciences, author of Creative Stress for an intensive, personalized retreat in Manitou Springs on February 9 to 12.

Lawyers, Are you solving the problems that matter in the World? You went to law school to

When people with mental illness and cognitive impairments cycle in an out of jail—is there a better solution? 'Problem solving courts' are one approach, and shift the relationship between the judge and the judged. Join Natasha Mitchell at a symposium considering the 'for and against' with key players in Australia.

Carmela Hill-Burke teaches in an Oregon prison, in solitarty confinement. One of the methods she uses with her incarcerated students is writing. Seems they take to it with hunger. Is there any arena where writing cannot lighten one's life load?

After responding to essays written by the 200 prisoners in the IMU [Intensive Management Unit] every week, Hill-Burke started seeing improvements. Instead of a few sentences, they were writing more than ten pages and asking for more paper.

"They starved for social recognition and attention," she said. "I just wrote them a few sentences, and they would just explode."

After consideration from the prison counselors, Hill-Burke was asked to teach a class to the prisoners. Showing up to individual cages, Hill-Burke taught a class to IMU inmates on meditation, mindfulness and creative writing.

"I just wanted to explore tools to deal with the violent social atmosphere they were living in," she said. "I wanted to teach them to act and not just react to situations."She noticed improvements every day. ...

Halfway through college, and still drifting, I decided to become a high-powered tax lawyer. The plan was sailing along until I took my first course in tax law. I was stunned by its complexity and lunacy, and I barely passed the course.

Around the same time, I was involved in mock-trial classes. I enjoyed the courtroom. A new plan was hatched. I would return to my hometown, hang out my shingle and become a hotshot trial lawyer. Tax law was discarded overnight.

This was 1981; at the time there was no public-defender system in my county. I volunteered for all the indigent work I could get. It was the fastest way to trial, and I learned quickly.

When my law office started to struggle for lack of well-paying work — indigent cases are far from lucrative — I decided to go into yet another low-paying career: in 1983, I was elected to a House seat in the Mississippi State Legislature. ...

Like most small-town lawyers, I dreamed of the big case, and in 1984 it finally arrived. But this time, the case wasn’t mine. As usual, I was loitering around the courtroom, pretending to be

“Our [prison] system simply fails to rehabilitate or deter, and our high recidivism rate is a clear indication of that failure. One reason for that failure is that imprisonment does not confront the inmate with his or her crime. For many inmates imprisonment represents no more than a period of monotonous and rigid routine which is coped with by living each day as it comes. Even though imprisonment is for some an unpleasant experience, few prisoners make clear or realistic connections in their own minds between their crime, its consequences and their incarceration. More often than not they emerge from prison older, harder and more bitter individuals, having rarely considered the suffering they have inflicted on their victims and their own families. Change is needed to ensure that inmates are confronted by the reality of their crime and its consequences for, unfortunately, the present penal system unwittingly ensures that responsibility does not have to be faced.”

This is a quote from the Roper Report into prisons called: “Te Ara Hou: The New Way” which was

Differing philosophies of justice administration in the U.S. focus alternately on punishment or rehabilitation. The therapeutic justice movement, which began in the late 1980’s, sees legal intervention as a means of addressing the underlying issues that lead a person to commit a crime. In effect, the justice system can be therapeutic for offenders. David Wexler first coined the term and has spent a great part of his career studying the approach. He joins us this Thursday for a conversation about therapeutic justice.

OVERVIEWStudent conduct programs often struggle to balance compliance with other laws while still focusing on student development at the same time. Many institutions are moving toward restorative justice programs and are seeing greater student growth and less recidivism.

Join us online to learn how you can implement a restorative justice process for your student conduct program. You will learn the philosophies, goals, and processes of restorative justice, as well as several models that can be implemented on your campus.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARNSession I will focus on:How to define key principles and values of restorative justicePossible campus uses of restorative justice and its cooperative vs. adversarial natureThe process of restorative justice

CSAOs, directors of student judicial affairs, student conduct and student conflict resolution programs, resident directors, area directors, and directors of residence life that have little or no understanding of restorative justice concepts and principles will benefit from this program. This session will focus on philosophy and overview of restorative justice over implementation considerations.

Session II will focus on:Planning and implementing a restorative justice program to fit your campusSeeking stakeholder buy-inIdentifying campus and community partners to use as volunteer facilitators and learning what it takes to train them

CSAOs, directors of student judicial affairs, student conduct and student conflict resolution programs, resident directors, area directors, and directors of residence life will benefit from this "how to" program.

CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION (CLE) CREDITSThis program has been approved for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit in the state of Colorado. Academic Impressions' sponsor ID is 'acaimp'. The program has been approved for a total of 4 general credits. Credit may be granted by states outside of Colorado, but credit decisions are at the discretion of individual state boards.